Complications:

Normally I wouldn’t include a section describing all of the things that went wrong during my testing, but there were quite a few complications involved in the testing of the APOGEE GT/GTX. This block is finicky to mount. Some of my original attempts to mount this block had the APOGEE GT/GTX being beaten by the FuZion by several degrees, while others had them on par or edging out the FuZion by as much as a degree. That’s a HUGE variation.

I contacted Gabe from Swiftech about my mounting problems, and he was kind enough to take some time out of his busy schedule to help me get more consistent mounting with the APOGEE GT/GTX.

First Step: If using a quad core, ensure that the orientation of the inlet and the outlet is perpendicular to the mounting arm (on the 680i. I’m not sure about other boards). Once I reoriented the block, I saw a couple degree difference in load temperatures across all cores

Second Step: Gabe suggested that I try using either a backplate or a motherboard that has not had a different mounting mechanism other than the Swiftech mounting mechanism because he feels that other vendors’ mounting mechanisms may be causing motherboards to flex, which would in theory recess the CPU socket, and cause poor contact with Swiftech mounting hardware. I didn’t play around with this theory too much, but I did switch to a brand new board, and I used a backplate (Thermaltake with ¼” neoprene fom to protect the back of the board) for the rest of my testing. My results improved again marginally once I used a backplate

Third Step: This one I came up with on my own, but I found that by tweaking the amoung of pressure that the 4 screws holding the block together, I was able to get a more centered contact area with the bowed base. For example, if I lifted the block off the CPU to see that the best contact was a little off to the right, then I would loosen the screws on that side a LITTLE bit to try to center it. This worked for me, and enabled me to reduce the difference in temperatures between cores 0/1 and cores 2/3 from 10C to about 4C.

Even after all of these steps, I found the APOGEE GT/GTX, during my official trials were less consistent than the other blocks in this round up and you will see that reflected in their results. Some mounts were better than that, some were worse, but I would rather report what the average user can expect than best case scenario, or worst.